There are fears that pupils' education will suffer

A survey by the National Union of Teachers (NUT) also suggested a further 320 teachers posts were at risk in England and 250 in Wales, the Guardian says.

NUT leader Doug McAvoy has written to Education Secretary Charles Clarke, pleading for an 11th-hour intervention to prevent the job losses.

He told the Guardian: "The means to correct the problem this year must be made immediately because children's education is suffering."

The government has accused local authorities of withholding �500m intended for head teachers.

But councils say they have not received the money needed to overcome a funding shortage which leaves thousands of teachers facing redundancy.

Repairs budgets

Some schools face debts of about �200,000 as they struggle to fund increases in teacher pay, pensions and National Insurance.

Last week, the government freed up money put aside for building repairs to be used for day-to-day running costs, such as wages.

Some schools said this would help with their immediate problems.

Others, however, have already allocated their repairs budgets, meaning no extra cash has been made available.

Schools facing a funding shortfall have until next Friday to make redundancies, in time for the start of term in September.

The Education Secretary has said the funding problems must be looked at in the long term, while officials claim redundancies are at similar levels to those of previous years.

But Mr McAvoy is quoted as saying: "The government needs to look at the problem this year, correct the problem this year by releasing more funding and ensure it doesn't happen again.

"Without correcting this year's under-funding, succeeding years will also be under-funded because they build year on year."

'Black hole'

Head teachers recently warned of massive problems looming in the funding of England's schools - which would dwarf the redundancies threat.

They say there is a �2.5bn "black hole" in the budget over the next two years - which could also wreck efforts to reduce teachers' workloads.

On Friday John Nicholls, head teacher of Buxton Primary near Coltishall, Norfolk, said he had reduced his working week to four days in an attempt to save money.

And earlier this week Edenham High School in Croydon, south London, released 720 of its 1,200 pupils after lunch, claiming it could not afford to teach them.

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is to head a committee to try to resolve the schools funding crisis.

The committee, which contains local government and Department of Education and Skills (DfES) representatives, is due to report back within six weeks.